Fat transplant could help combat obesity and prevent diabetes

A transplant of brown fat, which burns calories and regulates the metabolism, could combat obesity, a study has revealed.

Scientists have discovered that transplanting fat could hold key to weight loss.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s thought adding the right type of fat to the body could speed up calorie burning and improve conditions such as diabetes, the Daily Mail reported.

The theory is that there are two types of fat in the body. One is the much-dreaded white fat, which sits under the skin and gives us that beer belly or wobbly thighs. It’s caused by eating too much.

But we also have a smaller amount of brown fat, which generates heat. It does this by boosting the metabolism, burning large amounts of energy so the body starts to burn up the “white fat.”

When “switched on” it is said to produce around 300 times more heat than any other organ in the body.

Previous research has shown that some people – generally lean types – have more brown fat than others. This could help explain why they remain a healthy weight without much effort, while others struggle to lose weight.

It’s already known that we can try and activate our brown fat by turning down the heating or wearing fewer clothes – therefore making the body work harder to warm itself up.

But scientists at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston have now taken this one step further by actually transplanting brown fat to see if it can combat obesity.

They discovered that brown fat transplants not only significantly decreased body weight, they also improved insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism, reducing the risk of diabetes.

They also found that the transplanted brown fat also secreted hormones which controlled the body’s metabolism.